Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Choosing A Micro-Business

You often hear the advice "do what you love" when starting your own micro-business.

Im not sure this is the best advice. My advice would be-- do something you enjoy AND are good at.

That's probably not going to be your favorite passion or hobby. In fact, I think its generally a bad idea to create a business that involves something you truly and fanatically love doing. For example, I love to travel. I also like writing and am decent at it when I put my mind to it. So its obvious-- I should do travel writing, right?! Wrong.

I did a bit of freelance writing while living in Thailand. It was alright, but in general I found I didnt like turning two passions/hobbies into work. Writing is great when Im doing little haiku in my journal or blog posts... not so much fun when I feel the need to make money doing it. This is even more true with travel.

I did some thought experiments on this topic. I imagined various travel based businesses and realized theyd all destroy my love of spontaneous wandering. I thought of being a tour guide but as I imagined the details of ferrying tourists around, the thought lost its appeal.

Finally I settled on English teaching... an excellent choice it turns out. This is something I like doing... but as a job. Also, Im good at it. Though I really have fun teaching English, I have always thought of it as work and so Im happy to work at it.

When thinking of what to do for your own business, I recommend you set aside your true loves and passions-- dont base a business on those. Instead, think about what you've already done (or are doing) to make money. Could any of those jobs-tasks be turned into a micro-business? What about items you know a lot about (clothes, computers, etc.)... could you find a manufacturer and sell one of those?

Remember, we're not trying to become rich here... you don't need something that will make millions. You just need enough to support your simple Hobopoet lifestyle. Think hard-- there's definitely something you can do.

As for the details of running your project, start with The 4-Hour Workweek... its got some good practical suggestions.

The scariest part is starting. You don't need to choose the perfect thing... just choose something and try it. Try, test, evaluate, modify... then repeat. Thats the basic process for micro-business success. You can do it.. you can free yourself from wage slavery and be free.

"Poets are those who have made a profession and a lifestyle of being in touch with their bliss... Follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they'd be. Always go where you want to go -- where your body and soul want to go. When you have the feeling then stay with it, don't let anyone throw you off." --Joseph Campbell

"When you're on a journey, and the end keeps getting further and further away, then you realize that the real end is the journey." --Karlfried Graf Durckheim

Links

Hobopoets & Freedom Fighters (Blogs & Websites)

Hakim BeyFantastic- The anarchist-sufi prophet of Hobopoets! Visit this site!!

PlarkA traveler and hater of work.... nice thoughts on living a meaningful life.

Pupil in DenialThe writings of a woman who is staunchly resistent in ever parting with her lovelylife of an undergrad slash part-time barista which is everfaithful in churning quickmoney to satisfy her wickedwanderlust!

"Because of the dogma of workerism, unemployment is a problem rather than the boon to humanity that it should be." --Len Bracken

"Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed in them.... Most men appear never to have considered what a house is, and are actually, though needlessly poor all their lives because they think that they must have such a one as their neighbors have." -- Henry David Thoreau

Rolling TimesTONS of information on RVs and RVing... much of it applicable to van/car living.

"Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind. With respect to luxuries and comforts, the wisest have ever lived a more simple and meagre life than the poor" -- Henry David Thoreau

"A kind of second childhood falls on so many men. They trade their violence for the promise of a small increase in life span. In effect, the head of the house becomes the youngest child.... I did not want to surrender fierceness for a small gain in yardage. My wife married a man; I saw no reason why she should inherit a baby... And in my own life I am not willing to trade quality for quantity." --John Steinbeck, Travels With Charly

"The negative refusal of Home is "homelessness", which most consider a form of victimization, not wishing to be forced into nomadology. But "homelessness" can in a sense be a virtue, an adventure- so it appears, at least, to the huge international movement of the squatters, our modern hobos." -Hakim Bey

Spiritual

Vipassana MeditationFantastic meditation courses all over the world (free)!! I HIGHLY recommend them.

"Act as if you were already free... take the risk, dance before you calcify."-- Hakim Bey

We must constantly remind ourselves (since our culture won`t do it for us) that this monster called WORK remains the precise & exact target of our rebellious wrath, the one single most oppressive reality we face. - Hakim Bey

Poetry, Writing, & Art

Cafe PressA fantastic self-publishing site. No upfront costs. The wave of the future for DIY publishers.

Written RoadJen Leo's travel writing site. Very good and very informative.

Arthur RimbaudA glorious site with poems and a biography of the restless mad genius.

Aldous HuxleyA collection of links and info on the great writer-philospher.

"In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness" -- Henry David Thoreau

"Altough we all realize that monotony is boring, almost every form of industrial work- banking, accounting, mass-producing, service- is monotonous, and most people are paid for simply putting up with monotony..." --Alan Watts

"And what is the nature of a wasteland? It is a land where everybody is living an inauthentic life, doing as other people do-- doing as you're told, with no courage for your own life. To live an authentic life, Take your wisdom from your own experience. Because in thinking, the majority is always wrong." --Joseph Campbell

"All societies tremble when the scornful aristocracy of the tramps, the inaccessibles, the uniques, the rulers over the ideal, and the conquerors of the nothing resolutely advances." --Hakim Bey

Nomadism & Travel

BootsnAllIndependent travel stories from around the world. Contribute your own.

World HumTravel dispatches from a shrinking planet. Good travel writing site.

AjarnThis is the largest and most comprehensive website for English teaching in Thailand. Has an extensive job board, plus general information about living in Thailand

Stickman's BangkokAn in-depth site with practical information about living and working in Bangkok. Cocky, cynical and negative- but the basic info is good.

TealitSite for teaching English and living in Taiwan, including a job board.

Another year is gone -A travel hat on my head,Straw sandals on my feet--Basho

"If there's one thing I hate, it's the word "safety". We live in a civilization of safety, in which we are eventually cocooned from all danger, that is to say, from all experience. What we are left with is a vegetable plugged into a computer, who never leaves the room, like a hideous vision of a William Gibson novel. We would be well advised to rediscover risk." --Hakim Bey

"Remember above all things that to write is not difficult, not painful, that it comes out of you with ease, that you can whip up a little tale in no time, that when you are sincere about it, that when you want to impress a truth, it is not difficult, not painful, but easy, graceful, full of smooth power, as if you were a writing machine with a store of literature that is boundless, enormous, endless, rich. For it is true; this is so. Do not forget it in your gloomier moments. Make your stuff warm, drive it home American-wise, don't mind critics, don't mind the stuffy academic theses of scholars, they don't know what they are talking about, they're way off the track, they're cold; you're warm, you're red hot, you can write all day, you know what you know...." -- Jack Kerouac